


Glorified Pawns

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Games of Chess, Gen, Knights - Freeform, Loyalty, Tested Loyalty, faith - Freeform, pawns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 11:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18992164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Zahir and King Jonathan discuss Zahir's tested loyalty. A companion piece to "Tested Faith."





	Glorified Pawns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartsinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsinger/gifts).



> Inspired by heartsinger's interest in what King Jonathan was thinking when making the circumstances that led to the events in "Tested Faith."

Glorified Pawns 

“You’re my honored guest returned from the front.” The flash of King Jonathan’s pearlescent teeth might have been dazzling if he hadn’t seen it a thousand times when he was the king’s squire. He could never again be blinded by the bright light glistening from King Jonathan’s mouth whenever he smiled. 

“Come with cap in hand like a cripple in a marketplace to beg for more supplies.” Zahir allowed a slight, contemptuous curl to rise to his lips. He had been dispatched to court by Keladry of Mindelan, his commander, to negotiate more supplies and funding for New Hope. It was exactly the delicate, diplomatic mission he was about as suited for as a bull at a banquet, but she had been adamant that his familiarity with the king would render his appeals the most effective of New Hope’s officers in Corus. 

Before he had left the front, he had wanted to make a cutting comment to her about being familiar with the king not equating to being comfortable or welcome at the king’s court, but the relationship between him and Keladry was built on too rocky a foundation to risk such witticisms. He was beginning to respect Keladry—to even grudgingly admire her leadership skills—but he had been determined to never let his cold mask drop long enough for her to detect that. That, in turn, meant there was still too much of a chance she would interpret any wry remarks from his as insubordination—a challenge to her authority—and it had been a shock that almost forced him to lose his poise to realize that he cared how she about his words. It had been a battle to keep his face blank as a scroll, copying hers, as he bowed and accepted her order to go to court. 

“Since you’re my honored guest, you must pick your side—black or white.” King Jonathan tilted his bearded chin toward his chessboard. 

“White please.” Zahir waited for the king to sit behind the black pieces before settling into the chair behind the white ones. White moved first, and Zahir needed all the advantages he could have to outfox an opponent as wily as King Jonathan at chess. Even when he enjoyed the advantage of first move, the opportunity to unbalance his competition, he still inevitably found himself feeling the sinking sensation that his former knightmaster was operating at least three maneuvers ahead of him within a turn or two. The king’s mind seemed to be spinning wheels within spinning wheels—made for machinations Zahir could never fathom. 

Wiping that disconcerting notion from his thoughts so as to not discourage himself before the game even started, Zahir moved his queen’s pawn—carved from the ivory tusks of the great Carthaki elephants Zahir could only ever dream of seeing—forward two spaces. It was an aggressive opening— a King’s Gambit—that he hoped would catch his former knightmaster off guard. Matching his words to his actions, he declared tersely, “I passed your test, sire.” 

Once he would have hoped that meant the king would reassign him to duties elsewhere—anywhere—along the border. Now he wasn’t certain what he wished. 

“My test?” King Jonathan arched an eyebrow, frustratingly feigning ignorance of Zahir’s meaning, as he slid his queen’s pawn forward two places, mirroring Zahir’s maneuver. 

“Your test of my loyalty.” Zahir couldn’t prevent a hint of smugness from seeping into his tone as he advanced his first priest’s pawn forward to serve as a sacrifice pawn—bait to lure his opponent into a trap. Keladry, paranoid of the king since her probation so many years ago, had believed he had been sent to spy on her, but he had known his former knightmaster well enough to understand that the loyalty being tested. He had understood that he needed to prove to his former knightmaster that he would obey any order from his king, no matter how distasteful he found it. “I proved I would serve under a lady knight’s command if you ordered it.” 

This pronouncement was apparently so amusing to King Jonathan that he forgot the chess game. Laughing until tears of mirth gleamed in his sapphire eyes, he leaned back in his chair. 

Humiliated by the king’s jocularity at his expense, Zahir was tempted to shove the chessboard off the table between them. Only the knowledge that losing his temper would mean losing what remained of his dignity kept his hands clenched in his lap. 

“Obviously you don’t need a court jester when I’m in Corus, sire.” Zahir’s jaw felt clenched as his fists, and it was struggle to speak through his wounded pride. 

“My laughter offended you.” King Jonathan’s laughter had ceased echoing off the walls but his gaze still twinkled with the memory of it, bringing a flaming flush to Zahir’s cheeks. 

“Not at all.” Zahir’s chin lifted even as he hated himself for being the king’s faithful fool. “It’s a joy to serve as Your Majesty’s laughter fodder.” 

“You needn’t be miffed.” King Jonathan’s focus returned to the chessboard, deftly dodging Zahir’s trap by sliding his first priest diagonal three places. “I assure you I only find it amusing that you believe you’d need to prove your loyalty to me when you’ve already done so many times. In truth, you should be honored that I have such confidence in your loyalty.” 

Zahir scowled at having his trap evaded, but, undaunted, persisted in moving his knight behind his first priest’s pawn, asking, “If you weren’t testing my loyalty, why did you order me to serve under Keladry of Mindelan?” 

He couldn’t imagine the king arranging for him to serve under a lady knight without intending it as a test of his loyalty—a trick to discover if his faith in the Crown outweighed his disgust for female warriors. The idea that it could be anything otherwise left him simply stupefied. 

“So you would learn to respect her and cooperate with her so two of my most important knights would no longer be at odds but at least uneasy allies,” King Jonathan answered as if this were clear as crystal, advancing his king’s pawn forward a space. 

“We’re all just pawns in your game of cheese to be ordered about at your will then, Your Majesty?” Zahir nudged his other first priest’s pawn forward. The king’s self-satisfaction rankled because it made his mind glimpse the sudden similarity between himself and a pawn on a chessboard to be sent about and sacrificed at a king’s command in the name of lofty strategies beyond his comprehension. He ached to be more than a pawn and loathed himself for his own irrelevancy because he knew in his bones that he wasn’t. 

“Not pawns, Zahir, but leal knights.” King Jonthan’s gentle grin was no balm to Zahir’s bruised perception of himself and his role in the world. Moving his knight forward two squares, the king added, “Knights to serve and protect your king.” 

Zahir wondered if that meant knights were only glorified pawns in the eyes of kings but he swallowed the words before his tongue could shape them because there were some questions to which it was better not to hear answers. Glorified pawns were happiest ignorant of their own insignificance on the chessboard.


End file.
